Watch YouTube Videos Without Being Tracked by Google

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Last updated by rhiannon on 23. September 2020 - 18:21

Watch YouTube videos at Invidious

This site lets you watch YouTube videos with maximum privacy.

Google collects an astonishing amount of data from anyone who uses their services. If you have a Google account and are logged in, the amount of personal data Google collects is larger. When you watch videos on YouTube, Google’s algorithm tracks what you watch and makes recommendations, some of which can be problematic, in particular for children.

Invidious is a frontend to YouTube where you can access all the videos on YouTube without ads or tracking. The site is clean, loads very quickly, there are recommended videos, and you can do all the things you normally do with YouTube. View comments, ratings, likes, dislikes, annotations. You can instantly switch to watching a video on YouTube. There is no autoplay, but if you want to see what's next, check the ‘Play next by default' box.

Logging in with Google or creating an Invidious account (a user name and password are all that is needed) lets you subscribe to videos, create playlists, view your watch history and more. The landing page has popular and trending sections that don’t change according to what you view. The Trending section has music, gaming, news and a movie section for suggested viewing. There are no recommended videos in your feed derived from being tracked by Google, so if you like seeing what’s trending or enjoy the recommendations YouTube provides, you may want to use YouTube instead.

There are many additional features:
* Audio-only mode (and no need to keep window open on mobile)
* Open-source (AGPLv3 licensed)
* No ads
* No need to create a Google account to save subscriptions
* Lightweight (homepage is ~4 KB compressed)
* Tools for managing subscriptions:
* Only show unseen videos
* Only show latest (or latest unseen) video from each channel
* Delivers notifications from all subscribed channels
* Automatically redirect homepage to feed
* Import subscriptions from YouTube
* Dark mode
* Embed support
* Set default player options (speed, quality, autoplay, loop)
* Does not require JS to play videos
* Support for Reddit comments in place of YT comments
* Import/Export subscriptions, watch history, preferences
* Does not use any of the official YouTube APIs
* Developer API

If you like to watch YouTube videos and enjoy a clean interface that loads fast, has no ads, doesn't suggest videos and doesn't track you, give Invidious a try.

Visit Invidious


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Comments

youtube-local is a browser-based client for watching Youtube anonymously and without the lag of the slow page used by Youtube: https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local

Doesn't using Tor-browser accomplish the same thing?

I don't know. My internet connection is too slow to use Tor. The handful of times I've tried Tor it hasn't worked at all well.

Yout Player is the new way to watch playlists from YouTube on Desktop. No YouTube ads, simple to use, floating window: https://youtplayer.github.io
Yotter allows you to follow and gather all the content from your favorite Twitter and YouTube accounts in a beautiful feed so you can stay up to date without compromising your privacy at all: https://github.com/pluja/Yotter
OpenVideo detects almost every video and can play it in its own video player - bypassing all ads without being detected: https://openvideofs.github.io/

That looks interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks. :)

https://brandnewtube.com

Thank you! :)

You are welcome.
HookTube: https://hooktube.com/

Thanks Panzer, I'll add it to my list. :)

yt is an distraction-free youtube client. It is open source and doesn't collect your data: http://yt.dudzik.co/
Embetty displays remote content like tweets or YouTube videos without compromising your privacy: https://github.com/heiseonline/embetty

Thanks. :)

Tube - Minimalist YouTube: https://tube.qnzl.co/

Thanks. That really is minimalist. :)

Layluh allows you to watch videos and livestreams without distractions: https://www.layluh.com/

Thanks. It gives a bad link message if you enter a channel, but does fine on individual videos.

I don't know about tracking, but these five offer you a clean interface for watching YT videos: https://freetubeapp.io/ http://omega.gg/MotionBox/ https://toogl.es http://www.viewpure.com/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/df-tube-distraction-free/mjdep...

Those are great sites, thanks for posting them.

You are welcome.

Thanks R, a great site! Added bonus, it works great with my favorite Downloader 4k video downloader. A keeper.

Great, it's good to know it works 4k video downloader. :)

I tried to download Invidiuos, but couldn't determine what link to click on; so. I clicked on everything possible.
I still couldn't download it.
It sounds like something I would like to have.
Please help.
Thanx,
Nick M.

Hi Nick,

It's not a download, it's a web site, and the link is at the end of the article (it says Visit Invidious), here it is:

https://invidio.us/

PeerTube: https://joinpeertube.org/

Interesting, thanks Panzer. :)

You will also need this: Peertube Search - fast search index of public Peertube videos: https://peertube-search.com

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